\With over 40 years of experience and practice with visual and special effects, Todd W. Spencer leads all of our Visual and Special Effect Projects. With too many projects to practically show them all off – these are a few of our current favorites!
For a bit more information on all of the goodies you just saw, you can scroll down this page a bit for more information on the effects and to see them again.
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Todd did all the electronics and lighting on the VTOL aircraft. The flaps moved, the engine nozzles rotated, the landing gear lowered and it was mounted on a three-axis model mover. He also did a lot of motion control previz with that model and the ‘pod drop/catch” models. As well as a lot of miniature lighting on the pod catch basin.
Hollowman
Todd spent three months working on this at one of the old Hughes hangers in Long Beach. We had a several different scales of models of the elevator and shaft including a massive half-scale model. We also shot debris, smoke, pyro, and fire elements. I did a ton of plate lineup, video assist, pre-viz, and some motion control programming.
MEN IN BLACK 2
Todd built the electronics for the spaceship cockpit, including a nifty edge light for engraved Lexan control panels. He used flex-circuitry and surface mount leds for that and it was way back in 2000, before such things were fashionable.
MONEY TRAIN
Todd worked on the train derailment sequence. What you are seeing is a huge miniature set of the New York Subway system, over 100’ long. Todd built and installed a ton of miniature lighting including a ridiculous amount of miniature CCFL tubes to stand in for practical fluorescents.
POWER RANGERS: THE MOVIE
This was Todd’s first big VFX show. He worked on the cityscape miniatures installing lighting and motion control electronics. Two different scales. The largest skyscraper was about 15 feet tall. Tons of lighting effects and we used every type of lighting source imaginable: tungsten, CCFL, Neon, UV, you name it.
RAIN
This is an amazing X-Men fan film and tribute to the character Storm. Todd was pulled in towards the end of post to do a lot of extremely challenging greenscreen compositing and virtual environment creation. There was a lot of motion tracking and camera mapping involved. This was an incredibly fun project!
If you did not get enough of Rain, you can watch the full video here.
STARSHIP TROOPERS
Todd spent over a year on this movie. This was the last great spaceship miniatures movie. The biggest spaceship was 18 feet long. Todd did so many things on this show and remembers it as an amazing experience. He recalls one of the best moments was working with VFX legend Alex Funke on the pre-viz for the shot where the spaceship breaks in two.
STIGMATA
Todd did motion control programming for this one. This was an incredibly challenging shoot. The team had to shoot the “A” sides (talent) and “B” sides (fire FX) separately. This meant being able to put the camera back into earlier positions precisely. Also… fire.
STUART LITTLE
Todd did many things on Stuart Little but his biggest contribution was the engineering of the LaserCue system. Based on requirements by John Dykstra, it was a laser in a pan tilt rig, attached to a motion control system and synchronized to the camera shutter. This laser dot could be programmed with the path Stuart would follow providing the talent with an invaluable eye line reference.
As a side note, they discovered the LaserCue was a great way to guide the cats through their paces.
WHAT LIES BENEATH
This movie made extensive use of the reverse zoom effect made famous by Alfred Hitchcock. Todd engineered a way to automate this process. Todd placed an encoder on the camera dolly, connected to a motor driven zoom lens via a motion control computer. As the camera moved on the track the lens automatically changed focal length to keep the subject the same size while the background tromboned. The DP could even request who predominant the effect was from the obvious to the subtle.